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Jonn: You're Nothing Like Him
“Did you drink all of my fucking whiskey?” “No,” Jonn lied. Finch turned from the empty shelf to give him a look. “You’re the only other person who fucking lives here.” He narrowed his eyes. “And why do you live here, again?” “Because my dad kicked me out,” Jonn whined, sitting up from where he’d been lazing on Finch’s bed, fidgeting with Hansel’s compass. “Eldath, look, I’ll buy you more fuckin’ whiskey. If you come with me.” “Why would I come with you?” “’Cause it’s fuckin’ scary out there! Zombie motherfuckers with blacked-out eyes and shit. You want me to get killed?” Finch gave him another look. Jonn scowled. But Finch was already grumbling and sitting down to tug on his boots. It’d been days since he’d been outside anyway, as far as Jonn knew, and he probably needed some fresh air. Living in a damp cellar couldn’t be good for his lungs, and Jonn guessed he had to care about that now that Finch was the only person who would put up with him. Actually, he wasn’t positive Finch had left the cellar since the Graverunners had blown up their camp out at the Temple of Shar. He tended to stockpile food—and booze—and since Jonn had been staying with him, he’d just made Jonn go out and get him things. It gave Jonn something to do, so he hadn't really minded—the guild hadn’t been in touch lately. Probably busy dealing with the fact that there were monsters in the city now. Maybe they’d pull out of Skyport entirely, decide it was too much trouble. That’d be nice. Jonn fucking hated the new boss. It did mean the gold was getting a bit thin, though. As soon as Finch was on his feet, Jonn bounced up and grabbed his arm to drag him towards the door. Finch shrugged him off, still complaining under his breath. Jonn grinned. God, he was fun to fuck with. “Exactly how long has it been since you left the horrible fucking pit you live in, anyway?” Jonn asked casually as Finch went through the laborious process of unlocking the door. “I will kick you out of the horrible fucking pit I live in,” Finch threatened. “Whatever.” After the door was locked back behind them, Finch finally, reluctantly answered, “It’s been a little while, I guess.” He squinted up at the sky, then coughed. Jonn wanted to make a crack about how he’d adjusted to the musty air inside and now fresh air was bad for him, but he figured it was because something was burning, somewhere, and smoke was clouding the sky. He sniffed at it eagerly, raising his head. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Finch giving him another look—this one uneasy. He turned to give him a grin and grabbed his hand this time, tugging him up the stairs, murmuring his armor’s command word and making it ripple to darker colors for better camouflage. He’d paid to have the command word changed to don’t. Just a reminder. He thought Hansel would approve. Finch waited behind him as he paused at the end of the alley to peek around the corner, checking for monsters. “I still want to know where you got that armor.” “You can borrow it if you take it off me,” Jonn told him without even really thinking about it, scanning the street, snickering when Finch hit his shoulder. The streets were empty, but it paid to be careful. In the distance, Jonn could see the source of the smoke: a flag burning atop a tall tower, the flames spreading. Probably a signal to someone. He waved Finch on without looking back and stuck to the side of the street, checking each intersecting one before moving on. Finch sighed impatiently behind him. He hadn’t fucking been out here. Jonn considered tracking one of those things down just to freak him out. He really didn’t want to run into one, though. Not even to mess with Finch. He didn’t like the way they made him … feel. Or something. But he was distracted by a new great idea. “Hey, hey.” He stopped and turned to grab Finch’s arm. It wasn’t as much fun since he’d stopped twitching every time Jonn did it, but Jonn still liked doing it anyway. He gestured to one of the fancy townhouses they were walking by. “Bet they’ve got booze in there. Good stuff, too.” Finch started to say something. Before he could, Jonn bent to grab a loose stone off the street and hurled it through a window, the sound of shattering glass echoing around them. Finch literally jumped, scrambling back, and Jonn had to slap a hand over his own mouth to keep from bursting out laughing. “You fucking idiot!” Jonn waved to the still house excitedly. “No one’s home! See? It’s fine. Let’s go.” He knew that if he just charged on ahead, Finch would have no choice but to follow him—and he was right. His partner groaned and chased after him. “I fucking hate this,” he hissed. “I hate you.” Jonn busted the rest of the window in with his elbow, raking it around the edges and ducking in easily. He looked back. “I’m not going around and opening the door for you.” Sighing in annoyance, Finch followed him, awkwardly. He was stiff and out of practice. That didn’t work for Jonn. If they were going to be partners he was going to need to carry his own damn weight. Still, when Finch momentarily lost his balance on the way in, Jonn darted a hand out to support him. Finch brushed him off with a sulky look. They’d broken into a dining room. The place was dark, but Jonn could make out the long wooden table, half-set for a meal that he could smell going rancid in the nearby kitchen. These people had gotten out fast. They definitely hadn’t taken the time to pack up their booze. He pulled a glowstick wand out of his new bag and twisted the top before hooking it to his belt, lighting the room up, and turned to survey the rest of it. There was a hutch for fine glassware near the window, and he motioned for Finch—who was just standing there like an idiot, looking nervous—to help him shove it in front of the broken window and barricade them in. “This is a bad fucking idea,” Finch muttered, putting his shoulder into the hutch. “We don’t know this place—we don’t have a plan—.” “Yeah, yeah, you hate it, you hate me, you already said.” He turned to brace his back against the hutch and push with his legs instead. The thing was heavier than it looked. That was good, though. “Calm down. It’s gonna be fine. ‘Kay, c’mon.” Finch trailed behind him as he scouted through the house, making sure they didn’t have company. He wouldn’t’ve fucking bothered, normally, but he knew there was no chance of Finch leaving him alone about it if they didn’t. And just like he’d said, the place was empty—it was fine. “See? Fuckin’ nothing,” he needled him as they circled back to the dining room. The motherfucker hadn’t calmed down at all, still looking around shiftily. Jonn was really trying, here. No fucking appreciation. Sighing dramatically, he went back to the kitchen to raid it. There wasn’t any whiskey he could find, but there was a wine rack that was just about full. Finch wasn’t picky, as far as he knew, and he didn’t know anything about wine except that it came in two colors. He held the glowstick wand up over the bottles, inspecting them. One had a black label with a red chevron on it. Fucking Mishka’s wine—he recognized the symbol from Hansel’s shield. His jaw tightened. He wanted to fucking smash it. … Well, who was going to stop him? He whipped it off the rack and flung it at the floor. It burst beautifully, scattering green glass and red wine everywhere, and his brief bad mood turned to immediate giddiness. Eldath, he really wanted to do that again. But he also didn’t want to waste perfectly good alcohol. Hansel said Mishka’s wine was awful, anyway. (Oh—Hansel would have said don’t. Don’t smash things. It wasn’t on the list, but it seemed like it would be implied. Well, it was too late now.) Finch stood in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, stammering with incredulity. “It’s bad wine,” Jonn told him blankly. He turned to leave, saying, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” under his breath as he went. Jonn was torn between cheerily saying a lot or innocently insisting there’s nothing wrong with me, so he didn’t say anything and instead just scooped up three bottles—as many as he could cradle against his chest—and crunched over the broken glass to head back into the dining room. He could see Finch had moved on to the adjoining room and followed him in there. It was some sort of sitting room, or something—a fireplace, a couple of cushy chairs, a sofa, a coffee table. No windows, which was probably why Finch had gravitated in here. The piano in the corner had caught Jonn’s eye before, and Finch was inspecting the taxidermy bear with some distaste. Jonn thought about telling him he’d tried to stuff a bird, once. He’d been really bad at it, though. Ended up just stabbing the bird a lot, to the point he couldn’t stitch it back together. Not something he was particularly proud of. And now that he thought about it, the bird might have been a finch. He knelt down to put the wine on the coffee table and Finch turned at the clinking sound. As expected, it lured him over to sit on the edge of the sofa. Jonn picked a bottle at random and yanked the cork out with his teeth—or tried to, because he’d seen Hansel do it, and thought it looked cool, but apparently half-orc jaws were stronger than puny human jaws, because he couldn’t get the damn thing out. Finch snorted and took it away from him, pulling out a knife to jab into the cork and twist it out. “I could’ve done it,” Jonn said sullenly. “All right.” Finch gestured to a second bottle and took a long drink from the one he’d opened. “Show me on that one.” He was already in a better mood, and that perked Jonn up. Finch was fun on occasion. It was fun to screw with him, but that did get boring sometimes—sometimes Finch actually seemed to find him amusing. He scowled for show and drew his own knife to open the second bottle. Finch smirked. Jonn pushed himself up from the floor, unhooking the glowstick to set it on the coffee table so it could light the room better, and sauntered over to the piano to sit down at the bench. He took a gulp of wine and shuddered—ugh, he didn’t like wine, but it’d get him drunk just as well as anything else—before putting the bottle down beside him and stretching his fingers and wrists. “You’re fucking kidding,” Finch said. “Don’t deafen me with that thing.” Jonn shot him a glare over his shoulder and tried the first couple notes. He was rusty, but it seemed like it was in tune. He chugged more wine so he wouldn’t have to think about the fact that he and Luci used to play duets, and that the bench seemed empty without her. He dropped his fingers to the keys and closed his eyes. It came back to him—easy but complicated, methodical but fluid. Something to do with his hands that wasn’t destructive, the clerics had said. Something to keep him out of trouble. He hadn’t been trying to cause trouble—he was just bored—but he’d always liked playing the piano. They’d tried to get him to play a harp but he’d been bad at it and broken the thing. The piano had been a bit sturdier. “Hey.” He jerked and hit a wrong note and stopped, hands turning claw-like over the keys. Finch had come up alongside him and he hadn’t noticed. “That’s actually … You’re good at that,” Finch said. The bottle in his hand was already over half empty. “They taught me at the abbey.” He made his hands relax and picked out a rudimentary melody, not sure if he was copying something he’d heard or just coming up with it. “Abbey?” “Where I grew up?” Jonn gave him a quizzical look. Helena knew these things. Had he not told Finch? He guessed not. He just assumed that as a rule, Finch didn’t give a shit. But he moved Jonn’s bottle over to sit down on the bench, back to the piano. “How the fuck am I supposed to know where you grew up?” Jonn shrugged and kept playing half-heartedly for a moment before stopping to take another long drink. He shifted away from Finch a bit. Didn’t want to be near him for some reason. Kind of didn’t want to play anymore either. Maybe smash some things. “I grew up in Skyport,” Finch offered. “Just figured you did too.” He turned his bottle up. “You seriously grew up in a fucking church? Is that what’s wrong with you?” Jonn snorted. He tried to refocus on the keys, like they’d taught him. He pictured the sheet music in his head—Luci’s favorite song. One of the first few he’d learned, when his feet still didn’t reach the floor when he sat on the bench. It was simple, but it was pretty. When Luci had been little she’d sat next to him and hummed along to it. It calmed him down. “The Sanctuary of Eldath,” he said absently. “Outside Skyport. Dad took me there when he was still a pirate, ‘cause he couldn’t take care of me then. They kicked me out.” “You probably deserved it.” Jonn glared at him again. He wasn’t fucking helping. Finch was looking at him thoughtfully, though. “Why’d they kick you out? You steal something?” “''No''. They’re fucking—Eldathyns are pacifists. So they were going to let us all die instead of just kill some trolls. I solved the fucking problem. I made them fight back.” “Huh.” “They would’ve let my sister die. Fuck them.” “You have a sister?” Jonn stopped playing to stare at him. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about me, do you?” “I don’t want to know a goddamn thing about you,” Finch said defensively. Jonn rolled his eyes and picked the song back up. He murmured the command word and made the armor fade away up his arms, let the burn scars show. They weren’t as bad as Finch’s—they were a lot older, he guessed, and not on his face, of course. He caught Finch looking at them, but he didn’t ask. Jonn hadn’t asked about his, either. “Is your sister fucked up like you?” “No.” He hit a wrong note and frowned. “She’s … normal.” What did Hansel say? “Stable.” “Huh,” Finch said again. Jonn cut his eyes at him; he had stopped with the bottle partway to his lips, thinking about something. “You two get along?” “Yeah,” Jonn lied. “Always?” He broke the song off abruptly, slamming his fists onto the keys and making Finch jump. “''No''. What the fuck do you want?” “Calm down.” Finch slid Jonn’s bottle closer to him, but drinking didn’t make Jonn calmer. Usually it made him make impulsive decisions, and Hansel told him not to make any decisions when he was drunk—''don’t'', as usual—but that was rich coming from him. Last decision Jonn had made while he was tipsy had been—well, actually he wasn’t completely sold on that one anymore. It’d seemed okay at the time. He could be on a pirate ship with his dad right now instead of drinking wine with Finch if he hadn’t done it, but at least fucking Mishka had gotten what he deserved. “When you and your sister didn’t get along, then—what’d you do? How did you make up?” Finch asked. “We didn’t. And she never fucking forgave me, and she never wants to see me again.” Finch was quiet and still, for a long time. Jonn stared down at the keys. He didn’t want to play anymore, but he didn’t want to break bottles, either. He didn’t fucking like this feeling. “Oh,” Finch said finally. Years of studying the way Hansel talked to people told Jonn that he should apologize. For someone who could snap most people in two if he wanted, Hansel apologized a lot. If Jonn were his size, he’d never fucking apologize—but he was a foot shorter and half as wide and too pretty to be intimidating. Being pretty was useful, too, but it took more work. Hansel did a lot of work he didn’t have to do. It was exhausting to watch, sometimes. Jonn hoped getting Mishka out of the picture had made things easier for him. “My boyfriend died not that long ago,” he blurted. “What.” “You’re nothing like him,” he said, slowly starting to pick the song back up, “but I do like hanging out with you.” Again, Finch was quiet for a while. Jonn didn’t know why he’d said that just now. It was true, though. Finch was … fine. He was all Jonn had right now. For a long time Luci had been all he had, while he’d lived at the Sanctuary. Then he’d had to leave, and things had been—well. It was probably good Helena had found him, even he would acknowledge that much. She hadn’t been his friend, though, no matter how much he wanted her to be and tried to please her. But then Hansel had come home, and that had been good. He’d even had Roddy, too, for a while. That had been fun. Hansel was gone now. Maybe for good. Jonn didn’t know. Now he just had Finch. So he would work with that. “I didn’t even know you had a boyfriend,” Finch said. “Well. He’s dead.” He paused. “Hey, we should just live here. It’s fancy. And I like the piano. And there’s wine. I mean, I hate wine, but I like being drunk.” Finch looked at his bottle. “You know, I don’t really like wine either.” He stood up abruptly and Jonn stopped playing to keep an eye on him, pushed the bench back to watch him cross the hall, but lost sight of him when he left the dining room. There was a glass shattering sound, then a very obvious attempt to cover up a laugh. Finch returned looking purposefully deadpan. “All right, that was kind of fun,” he admitted. “But we’re not staying here. Too many points of entry. Too risky.” Jonn groaned and turned back to the piano. “You’re so fucking paranoid.” “You’re a fucking idiot.” “You’re fucking mean.” “You’re a goddamn lunatic.” Jonn snickered. “Let’s go home,” Finch said. “You were right about it being kind of fucking scary out here.” Home. He’d said let’s go home. Jonn bolted up, forgetting the piano immediately. “Okay. You wanna take the wine anyway?” Finch looked at him like he was stupid. “Of course I do.” Category:Vignettes Category:Jonn